


A Shift in Leverage

by daisybrien



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (Dear god save me for this next one:), (I think?), (i PROMISE that one isnt so damn in your face please. just consider it as), Aftercare, Bondage and Discipline, Cloacal Fucking, Clothed Sex, Communication, Dildos, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Established Relationship, F/M, Femdom, Kink Discovery, Light Dom/sub, More like -, Multi, Non-Human Genitalia, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outdoor Sex, PWP, Pegging, Penis In Vagina Sex, Porn, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Role Changes, Role Reversal, Rope Bondage, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Sex Talk, Sex Toys, Sexual Roleplay, Shibari, Smut, Teasing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: As the heat and haze of the summer eases in, Rilla finds a new way to indulge Arum in his delightful attraction to his little knights.
Relationships: Lord Arum/Rilla (Penumbra Podcast), Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	1. declaration

**Author's Note:**

> An elaborate excuse to put Rilla in armour. It's big sexy

Arum finds he cannot rest where he’s tucked himself into recluse, the high July sun and its baking noon heat making his mind a bleary haze. His body, sticky with the humidity that rises from the leaves and the wet marshes of the swamp, thrashes and twists against his bed linens even as he sprawls in the shadiest places he can find, his mind a fog that keeps him even from the thought of sleep. The midafternoon still pierces through the slits of the window – a sacrifice he realized he’d made in vain, feeling no draft or breeze to ease the heavy drape of its unpleasant warmth – so when it pricks against his eyelids for the last time, he all but flings himself from the greenery of the Keep to busy himself.

He tends to keep from exposing himself to the sun directly during the noon hours, even when it provides the most heat for his body to soak in – even for the cold-blooded like him, there lies a threshold where the energy it grants peters off into a panting and distracting discomfort. It makes him sluggish, snappish, and he is pleased to find that a similarity in his humans as well. So even as he moves to try and find something to occupy his muddied thoughts, he keeps to the shade of the foliage, the bank of the nearby stream where the sound of running water can give him some illusion of coolness. 

Where he doesn’t find Rilla holding her own refuge in the shade, he finds her here, half stripped and calf-deep in the current. The dazzling rays of the sun cast her in the glittering reflection of soapy remnants of river water, dripping down her her arms and plastering strands of hair across her shoulders. Arum drifts closer to her, his tongue catching the scent of the sweat across her dark skin, the smell of the sun on her, and when he places a gentle hand to the small of her back above the waistband of her damp shorts, the heat of her overtakes any reprieve that the water at his ankles allow.

“Hello,” she squeaks, in a way that could be mistaken as nonchalant, if Arum hadn’t felt the way she shifted at his touch. He almost cherishes the little jump she makes when he approaches her from behind, a hint of glee in the way she shifts against the touch in the moment between the sensation and the recognition of it. Her fingers flutter slightly at her sides, her body straightening up to stand with her back in line with his front

Arum wants to wrap her in his four arms, would have enveloped her in his grasp and whisked her away any other time he’d have found her in this state of undress – instead, he grazes one hand through the damp water coating her forearm. There are more garments scattered across her riverbank than on her person – sleepwear saturated with sweat from broiling nights, wraps and saris laid out to dry in the sun, Damien’s armour gleaming metallic in the light - and even if he weren’t disinclined to press his own sticky body to her in the current climate, he knows better than to remove her from whatever task she has at hand.

“Pray tell me why you’re out in this heat,” Arum grumbles against her neck. He closes his eyes, and from touch alone she almost feels like a sun herself against him. “I took you for a sane woman.”

She breathes a laugh through her nose. “The chores don’t wait for the weather, Arum.”

“And this is not a task that can be done inside?” he gripes. Rilla clicks her tongue at him, wriggling out of his arms.

“You mean the washing?” she retorts, an eyebrow raised at him. One hand gestures behind her, as if his question were pathetic. “The chores that require water?”

He doesn’t comment, even his hazy mind giving into the logic of neglecting multiple trips back and forth. “Your skin will burn.”

“I’m wearing block, Arum – and I’m not going to explain UV rays to you again, so don’t try me with another tirade.” She grins when he shuts his mouth with a snap of sharp teeth, growing more mischievous as she fully looks him over – almost having a full realization. “At least I’m wearing _something.”_

“Us monsters don’t need to delude ourselves for the decorum of clothing when _alone_.” He crosses one set of arms over his bare chest. “There is certainly no use for it in such scorching temperatures.”

Rilla snorts. “You’re telling me you prefer to traipse around the Keep naked?”

“That’s not what I said,” Arum redirects, Rilla sticking her tongue out at him in response to his irritated flick of the tongue.

“No,” she agrees, her tone airy in a way he knows is anything but innocent. “You said you can be naked for no reason when you’re alone.” She splashes her way against the current until she is completely out of the way of its flow, passing the muddy lining of its shore. ”You’re not alone now, though.”

He eyes her even as she turns her back to him, bending over to pick up the clothes laid out to dry on the grass. A little bit of the physical heat around him shifts into something more, watching the arc of her back, the way the hem of her shorts ride up to reveal the backs of her thighs. He clears his throat slightly, shifting when he catches the bottom curve of her ass peek out just a moment before she stands again, her arms laden with an unfortunate amount of clothes that obscure the view to her chest and bare stomach.

“Well don’t just stand there,” she says. “C’mon, I’m almost done, and then we can get out of this heat.”

Arum scurries to grab one of her baskets, loading them with laundry at varying stages of drying. It’s not much – thankfully enough to be carried by two people in just one trip, especially when one of them has four arms – but it already fills him with impatience, hearing the rattle and shuffle of Rilla behind him. He already wants to start the trip back to their little hut, be able to watch the minute pulse of her heartbeat under her bare neck, the curve of her shoulder and the gentle bounce of her subtle curves, and even the casual sight of her is enough to intoxicate him that he must steal a glance now -

He barks out a laugh that is entirely unbecoming before he can stop himself, one hand shooting up to cover his mouth as he tries to stifle the snorting cackle pressing inside his chest. Rilla whirls, one eyebrow raised as if he told her the sky was green and the grass blue, and still –

“What-?” is the only thing that manages to find its way off his tongue, uncharacteristically light with laughter as he scans her up and down, as if delighted at the novelty of the sight.

“Seriously?” Rilla says, unamused. She holds her arms out in an exasperated stance, and the way Damien’s garb - light canvas and metal plates and pieces that nonetheless bury her form underneath their bulk - hangs off them in folds that just shows how little her lithe frame fills it out. This only makes Arum snort into his hand again. She rolls her eyes, lacing Damien’s chest plate onto herself with a clumsy swiftness. “There’s like a million fucking pieces to Damien’s armour, it’s so much easier to wear it wherever you want it to go.” She doesn’t spare more than a fleeting glance back down at herself, too busy with the task at hand to bother with being self-conscious.

“I would think someone as smart as you would find another way of transport,” Arum says with a smile. “But maybe you don’t want to deny yourself the opportunity to dress up.”

“Oh, for Saint’s sake,” Rilla grumbles. Her body rattles with all the loose and shifting parts when she throws up her hands in defeat, a cacophony as she hoists the basket of linens on her hip with ease and begins marching home. Even as she mutters under her breath about the stains of dragging them across the grass, and whole trips just for one set of mail to get back and forth, and _if you find it so strange you could build a path for a cart instead of bugging me about efficiency, Arum,_ he’s taken aback by the ease of her gait as they walk the trip back. He’s lifted Damien in his armour before, and while it proves no difficulty for a creature like him, he still recognized the difference in weight. And while Damien has the frame to explain his talent for moving within its bulk – wiry muscle and toned legs, broad shoulders and firm torso, all mere thoughts that Arum is abashed to know dizzy him further – he is rather impressed to see Rilla handle its mass with such capability. He is once again made aware of the hidden strength in her – not just in this little human’s brilliant mind and virtue, but in her square-shouldered stance, the determination and endurance of her consistent step even as he watches a bead of sweat roll its way down her brow. He thinks back to the steely tone of her voice, the steel of her knife in a white-knuckled grip the time he entered her home without her knowledge or sanction -

“Arum,” Rilla chimes, a hand gently waving in his field of vision. He doesn’t know how long she had been calling his name, her firm tone jolting him back to earth. “Hey, you still in there?”

“A ridiculous human turn of phrase,” Arum stutters. “Where else would I be but my own mind?”

“I don’t know,” Rilla shrugs, drawing him back from his failed deflection. “But you seemed kind of spaced out there,” she side-steps closer to him, their hips bumping against each other playfully, “made me wonder exactly what was going on in that mind in the first place.”

“Just-“ Arum stammers, taking a quick breath when Rilla flashes him a wicked grin, eyes piercing. “Admiring the – the scenery.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “The swamp seems to bloom so brightly in the summer.”

“Ah, I see,” Rilla nods, nonchalant. “For a minute I thought I was about to get one of your rare, straightforward compliments.”

He almost stumbles when she bumps his hip a second time, deliberately mischievous, and her smile blooms from a gentle tease into something deeper and knowing. Another, different shock of heat envelopes him, even as they retreat into the thin sliver of shade the trail manages to provide, and his mind drifts so far in so short a time he barely registers the sight of her and Damien’s thatch roof peeking from over the hill.

Rilla huffs as she all but drops her basket onto the log they use to chop firewood, obviously finding its utility outside of its original purpose as the height of the seasonal heat weighs down on them. She undoes the buckles around the shields on her legs with the same nimble, meticulous fingers that always leave him in a trance, bending all the way down to reach them. Not sitting down, nor leaning against the yard’s workbench, of course, and while Arum could assume it’s because of the heat clouding her rational thought, he is much more willing to bet that she is much smarter than that - and for his own good. Even – or perhaps especially - with the straps pressing lines into her bare skin, his eyes trace the line up from her ankles up to the inner crease of her thighs where her shorts have ridden up again. One of the leg’s hem had managed to snag the armour on her torso, lifting up to reveal half of an ass cheek, and that heat shoots down between his legs with an aching, desperate pressure.

“Amaryllis,” Arum breathes, slowly taking a step towards her. Rilla answers with a question in the form of a curious little hum, peeking around her working fingers to do so. The plates on her leg fall to the ground with a muted thump, and she rises to her full height before working on the second leg – perhaps to allow herself the time to stretch her stiff muscles, or to pull the hair from her face with a liberal twirl, or perhaps something much less benign – and he takes the opportunity to line himself up behind her.

It’s either the crack of his palm firmly against her skin, or the embarrassingly shrill yelp that erupts from Rilla’s throat at the surprise, or even his barking, satisfied laugh at her wide eyes – one of the three is loud enough to make a bird squawk and retreat from the canopy above, and Arum’s laughter only echoes rowdier when Rilla gasps in indignation.

“You ass!” she cries. She almost growls when she tries to whirl around to face him, only to find one set of hands firmly against her hips, walking her slowly towards the wall of the cottage. Arum rests his jaw on her shoulder, the cool steel of metal armour on his jaw soothing against the itching warmth blooming through his skin.

“Your ass,” he says. Rilla clicks her tongue in faux annoyance, but her animosity dissipates in a tremble he feels minutely against his front as his tongue flits out against her ear, moving to tease a trail down the side of her neck. They stop their walk when her hips bump against the edge of her worktable. “If you’re truly angry at me, you only need to be honest.”

“Maybe I want you to give me a good enough reason to forgive you,” Rilla retorts. She presses her hips into his, a movement on the edge of an overtly sexual grind that makes an anticipatory growl erupt from deep within Arum’s chest.

“Oh, you little-“ Arum hisses. Rilla gasps as his tongue winds around her ear, no less satisfied as the laugh it started off as, the whisper soft sinew of its forked end feather light against her. The salt of her sweat sits as a heavy tang on his palate, a heady cloud in his nose and his thought that makes his hands wander.

“You out there, in the stream,” he mutters against her, relishing the sound of her gasps. His hands, exploring her with rapt attention, cannot find their way under the maze of Damien’s armour well enough to find her breasts. He settles by leaning forward, pushing her down, down until her body is flush with the table, her arms desperately pushing away tools and papers that scatter haphazard onto the grass. “Out there, in nothing but these scraps of cloth-” the set of hands not on her hips grabs her waistband, furiously tearing her pants down her legs, “-your ass in the shorts you couldn’t even bother to take off after our honeysuckle fingered you in them last night-“ Rilla groans, and he ruts against her backside to relieve the aching pressure there. “You make me want to do truly wild things to you.”

“Look whose talking,” Rilla replies. “Coming to me in nothing, your eyes practically undressing me the whole time…” Arum brings one hand down in front of him, pushing between her thighs from behind; he’s able to brush his fingertips from her cunt up to her clit in one smooth movement, her vulva already coated in her slick, threatening to drip down the inside of her legs and across her taint. The thought of her, already wet – already _soaked_ , maybe they left cute little stains on those meagre scraps of fabric – makes the persistent strain between his legs peak until his cocks slip from their sheath. He can’t help but rut again, fully erect, one dick slotting between her ass cheeks to fuck between them while the other glides teasingly over her folds.

Her voice stutters off into desperate little gasps as her eyes flutter closed at the sensation. She’s ready, he knows she is – she’s taken him so many times before, while less eager than this – but he slips his thumb into her pussy as precaution, curling it against her front wall just to make sure she’s comfortable for what comes next.

“Oh just fuck me already,” she snaps, swaying her hips backwards in an almost desperate attempt to push onto his cock by herself. The purred growl thrumming deep in his chest rumbles up into a crescendo of a snarl, his mouth at her ear and teeth grazing at her jaw, and he reasons that there is no reason to deny her when they want each other so badly.

He takes his lower cock in his hand, twitching as his own fingers trace the ridges of it before burying himself to the hilt in one smooth, slow thrust. He can’t help but mirror the deep groan that spills from her, watching as her eyes flutter closed and her brow crease.

“Saints, yes, Arum,” she pants. He starts with a hard, snapping rhythm of his hips, panting heavily in time with each little gasps she makes every time he drives into her. Fuck, he loves her like this – bent over the nearest piece of furniture they can find, her stretched around his cock while the second teases between her ass cheeks at the concept of fucking her double. Her warmth is entirely overwhelming like this, wrapped wet and tight around him, a stark contrast to the solidity of the cool metal against his abdomen that sends another, unexpected thrill through him –

“Look at you,” he purrs, one hand brushing her hair to the side so he can nibble dangerously at the back of her neck. Another winds its way under her, wedged between the rough wood of the table and the steel of the armour. “Face down, ass up just for me to take you.” He swats her hand away so he can press his own fingers in tight, firm circles over the hood of her clit. It makes her gasp, giving her the chance to free both of her arms so she can grip the edges of the table. “Too eager to even get your shorts from around your ankles,” his purr dips lower when she turns her head to meet his eyes through the crack of heavy lids, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. “The very image of scandal, out in the open no less, showing everyone how good of a fucking you can take when they see you, debauched and disheveled with your clothes hanging off you.

“Although,” he breathes into her ear. He slows the pace of his hips, compensating for speed with rough ferocity. It’s both to save his endurance and to make sure Rilla isn’t too caught up to pay attention to his words, and he is delighted to see her eyes roll back at the change. “These aren’t your clothes, are they now?” His whisper is a hiss of overwhelming pleasure, from the tight pressure around his cock to the panting breath she makes in return. He thrusts harder, harder still, and each time he buries himself down to the hilt with a vicious snap of the hips the armour on her rattles in enchanting percussions. “What would our little honeysuckle think,” Arum growls on a wicked smile, “if he were watching you now, his darling fiancée bent over - in his archery gear – a filthy act, sullying such noble garment, and by a monster no less-“

Rilla cries out on a thrust, and – it’s a sound he doesn’t think she’s heard from her before. It rips from her throat, a gasp moving into a scream into something almost akin to a wailing plea if it weren’t so heavy with the weight of either want or agony. It’s enough to make him slow and pull back, ready to fully withdrawal.

“Amaryllis?” he says, feeling his brow furrow as he begins to lift his body off hers against the table, gently brushing hair from her face. “I – are you alright, Amaryllis-“

“ _Don’t you dare fucking stop,”_ she grunts, and she pushes her hips back into him roughly with a debased moan. “Don’t you dare stop fucking me, Arum-“

The urgency of her tone almost astonishes him – but the growing arousal and need persists like a current between them, and has no reason or want to deny such an enticing plea, so he picks up his pace again with renewed eagerness. Rilla moans in bliss as he tucks the blunted tips of his circling fingers under the hood of her clit, pushing her up onto her toes each time he rocks into her with new fervor. The table starts to shake underneath them, the creaking of wood and rusty nails joining the steely clank of the armour.

“Oh, you love the idea of it, don’t you,” Arum continues, his cock twitching when she moans and nods at his words, cheek pressed to the table and mouth open in a silent cry. She starts to tense around him, the sound she makes every time he pushes deeper into her letting him know she is getting closer and closer to her climax every time. “All dressed up, so noble – and yet so filthy, you love it when I fuck you senseless, my little knight-“

“And you like fucking little knights,” Rilla grunts through gritted teeth. Arum chuckles and nips her jaw in retaliation, but even as he fucks into her in earnest she manages to form her words. “Maybe - I think you like it even more when your little knights fuck _you-“_

That’s a challenge, one he should have bloody expected from her – of course she would, of course his headstrong, determined Amaryllis would posit her own delightful little teasing promises as he fucks her over the nearest thing he could find, talking dirty in her ear as if she were any less domineering over him during moments like this. He shivers with the thought, his cocks twitching as the thought races him towards an sharp, perfect edge he didn’t even realize he was approaching so quickly.

“You’ll confront me just the same, then?” he pants, the knot in his gut coiling tight with pleasure as his rhythm grows erratic. Let her dare him, he thinks, just like Damien, just like his honeysuckle grappled and proved his own triumph. “You’d fuck me, you valiant, gorgeous creature, you’ll bring me to my knees for you-”

“Yes, _yes_ -” she cries, words devolving into desperate moans, her voice cracking as she sprints towards her orgasm. Her legs are trembling, her knuckles white against the wood as her body goes stiff under him, and he continues to fuck her, continues to run the pads of his fingers over her wetness so he can tease and pleasure her twitching, pulsing clit through every wave of it.

“Fuck-!” the cry could have come from either of them, blood rushing in Arum’s ears as Rilla clenches around him, and he allows himself to release with a groan. He spills inside her as she goes slack and pliant under him with a gentle cry, his second cock jumping against her ass and speckling her dark brown skin with his cum. With a few final grinding of his hips, he pulls out of her with a shaking moan, collapsing with his arms on either side of her as if to shield her from the world around them.

They catch their breath like this, heavy and panting in the summer sun as their bodies twitch, limp and supple against each other. Arum purrs gently against the back of her neck, the baby hairs plastered to her nape with a delicate sheen of sweat that his tongue skirts over with relish. She smiles, soft and satisfied, as he runs a gentle claw through her hair, her breath of a laugh an anchor bringing them down from the clouds.

“Alright,” Rilla sighs. “Okay,” she reaches one hand up over her shoulder, patting his gently to signal she’s well and done. “Alright, off.”

Arum grunts at her bluntness. “All that, and you are willing to just shove me to the side in less than a few minutes.”

“I’m sweating like a damn pig in this,” she groans, wriggling under him. “ _Off.”_

_"_ I see how it is, _"_ Arum obliges - albeit with an overly begrudging groan of displeasure – lifting himself up onto all four of his hands, enough for Rilla to move with ease but not so much that he is willing to let go of her just yet. She fumbles with the laces on her shoulders, Arum using one set of hands to at least attempt to undo the straps along her sides before she swats them away under the complaint that he was only tangling them more. But she’s blissfully naked soon enough, Damien’s armour shunted to the side, discarded, and her lying on her back on the table, and Arum is content to press against her once more with his head tucked into the crook of her shoulder.

“So much for washing,” she grumbles, fanning her tacky, sweaty skin in graceless performance. Still, she hums with pleasure as his arms gently wrap around her, one of her own hands moving so she can run her fingers along the ridged line of scales over his crown. “That was something.”

“It- certainly was,” Arum replies carefully, his body still singing with the pleasure, his cocks sensitive even in the act of slipping back into himself.

“A good something, I’m assuming?” Rilla asks cautiously, looking down at him with those curious eyes. “I just – y’know, that was - intense – I wanna make sure everything about that was – okay?”

“ _Okay,_ ” Arum chuckles, “in an almost insulting understatement. You were absolutely breathtaking, Amaryllis.”

“Mm,” she hums, grinning smugly. “You were pretty fuckin’ good yourself.”

“Still,” Arum breathes, and he looks into her eyes, the dark brown of her iris swallowed by her blown pupils, losing himself in her hungry gaze. “The intensity, the – you were –“ he stutters, unsure of how to proceed. “The things we said-”

“All good things?” she muses quietly, raising an eyebrow.

“I think it would be a missed opportunity,” Arum answers, his pace measured, “if we neglected to revisit such ideas, in the near future.”

“Huh,” Rilla says, her tone a gentle purr that has conditioned Arum to anticipate a delightful challenge. “Good to know.” Her fingers trace through the grooves of his scales, along the thin sinewy edge of the fringe along the back of his neck, before squeezing him close.

“You’re boiling,” Arum murmurs, the heat of the balmy sun and her supple body slowly creeping in towards the edge of his vision again. He’s sluggish as he moves his mouth up to meet Rilla’s, his tongue flicking out against her lips before pressing against her gentle kiss, lost in the love and haze of the warmth pressing in around him. “Shade.”

“And to think we has just regained the capacity for full sentences,” Rilla quips. Arum lets her stand, murmuring in quiet hums before Rilla slips out of his grasp and wraps a spare sheet from their baskets around her like a flowing gown, shooting him a grin as she traipses into the house on wobbly knees. “Hang the laundry, and maybe I’ll revisit those ideas with you inside.”


	2. consideration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the meat of this delicious sandwich right here

They revisit the idea a week later.

It’s a slow, solitary evening for him; he spends the last few rays of sunset at Rilla’s kitchen table, a book in his lap and his glasses perched on his snout. The dripping of their sink had lulled him into his trance while reading, dishes for two drying in the basin after their dinner hours ago. His heart ached a little, at Damien not joining them that night, though he had no reason to angst over his loss over so short time for which Arum would both want to bother his human compatriots, nor let his disappointment at his little knight’s absence be known so heavily.

It is this fact, however, that makes him aware that something is – amiss, when he hears the tromp of boots on the floors above his head. The sound would only be a nuisance, if it weren’t so quiet as much as it were persistent, as if it were trying to keep from his notice. It is precisely the reason why he pulls his head from his novel, shoving it aside with an annoyed trill of the tongue before trudging his way up the stairs to investigate.

“Honeysuckle?” Arum calls out tentatively. It is too early for Damien to have returned, surely, which makes him all the more suspicious as he opens the door to the little room with his desk in it and finds no one there. He doesn’t realize that the spare set of armour hanging on the near wall is gone, a feature he barely pays attention on any day that it manages to escape his notice as he continues his search through the hall. Candlelight flickers under the door of their bedroom, and he follows it in an attempt to soothe his curiosity.

“Who-?” he begins, the door creaking as he eases it open, looking around its ledge to scan the room. At his voice, there is a sudden, short cacophony of heavy footfall. There is a figure by the bedside table, leaping up from where they were kneeling to pilfer through the drawers in search of goods, turning around to meet his glare with wide eyes.

The person in knight’s armour is most certainly not his honeysuckle.

“Oh sh- I’m not ready-!” she exclaims, rushing over to him with quick strides to push him backwards over the threshold.

“Amaryllis,” Arum chuckles lightly to himself. Her hands aren’t firm against him; the pressure she places on his chest only a request he kindly obliges by stepping out of the room. One hand moves to run up and down her shoulder as his eyes look over her garb, try to peer over her shoulder at the room. “What in the world-?”

“I wanted it to be a _surprise_ -“ Rilla grouses, closing the door halfway before she walks Arum so his back is pressed against the corridor wall, “but since you love to poke your nose into my _work_ -“

“I’m-“ Arum interrupts, stuttering as he takes her in, “you look…” He moves as if to tuck her hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing the motion against the side of her head and down her neck, but there is not a single strand out of place. Every bit is pulled back, braided into a tight, professional bun that is both immaculate as it is stern. She had lined the lower lid of her eyes with a forest green that matched the fabric underneath her armour – Damien’s armour – each piece fastened to herself with careful consideration.

“Good?” she guesses.

“Unspeakably handsome,” Arum decides, reaching out to hold her arms and pull her closer. She raises her eyebrows at him with a smirk, arms reaching up to cup his cheeks. “Utterly breathtaking,” he offers again, dipping down to press his mouth to her smiling lips. Her hands move towards the back of his head, gripping him firmly as she pulls him in to deepen their kiss. The leather gloves she wears are smooth and warm against his scales, their delightfully rough friction almost greedy, and it makes him gasp.

“You said you wanted to surprise me,” Arum muses when he pulls away. He tries to peek past her again, but she only grabs his chin with careful fingers, forcing him to meet her dark eyes in an intense gaze that makes his heart race. “I suppose I should apologize for ruining your plans.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that yet,” Rilla placates sweetly, patting his cheek gentling. He’s spent hours, days, almost weeks getting to know the loving twinkle in her eye by now, and it shines just as bright as always – and he recognizes when it grows mischievous, dangerous. “It’s not like you’ve said no to them.

“You can, say no to them, you know,” she clarifies, in an easy, matter-of-fact tone that she uses when she means to be clear and transparent. Arum nods, thankful for it, and for the way her voice dips and the corner of her lips curl afterwards. “But after you threw me over the nearest flat surface and fucked me senseless, and we had that conversation about you getting hard at the mere thought of me being all dressed up and in charge - I thought it would be nice to – treat you, to something different. To try something new.”

“I see,” Arum purrs. Rilla leans into him, the canvas and metal of the armour biting into his scales with a sweet little chill that makes him all too aware of the blood pumping hot through his body. “If I am to make an informed decision, however, you must indulge me in your expectations for the evening, no?”

The smirk at the corner of her lips slowly blooms, a supple, easy grin that makes his nerves sing in giddy anticipation.

“Come in,” she says with a twitch of her head, and Arum, with no want to ever disobey her, follows her into the bedroom.

There are no big changes to the room that he can see. The usual lantern illuminates each corner of mess they’ve made, the bed still unmade and their chairs covered in linens and clothes discarded over the past few days. There had been an attempt to shove tomes and notes underneath the mattress, replaced by a layer of blankets and cushions, and Arum is appreciative of the effort she had put in before he had so rudely interrupted. Still, the yellow glow of the gaslight is strangely suffocating, the summer heat cloying, mingling with the tension in a tangible curtain that blankets them as he shuffles into the room. It is enough to make the ever familiar pressure in his groin emerge, but he doesn’t dare sit, let alone reach between his legs to placate himself, without her permission now.

The sight of Rilla is enough to cement him where he stands, bite his tongue as he watches her mill around the room with careful eyes. He can see the shift in her attitude from her posture alone, her face stony and unbothered, one arm crossed over her chest while the other hand rests casually on her chin as if, for her, thinking deeply took any effort at all. She takes slow, long strides, the tap of each boot an even rhythm. He can tell they’re a few sizes too big, unwieldy on her feet, wrinkled and sagging at her ankles when they should be cinched neatly at the calf – they mirror the way the clothing under Damien’s gear hang and fold at the joints, excess fabric tucked away under straps and buckles. Still, she carries all of it with a practiced, sure ease, the high collar a compliment to the sharp lines of her cheek and her jaw held high, the broad shoulder plates widening her strong, unmoving stance. The control she has over herself, that she will surely wield over him, makes his cocks twitch and ache where they are still half-sheathed between his legs.

“Eager, are we?” she muses with a glance at him. Arum holds his tongue, unsure whether he should respond. “Take that cloak off,” she says, taking it from him kindly before he all but throws it onto the floor.

“So this is how it’s gonna go,” Rilla says, her gloved hands perusing a selection of objects lined up on the dresser with manufactured disinterest; a hank of thick purple rope, a bottle of clear oil, three blown glass phalluses of subtly differing shapes. “As you can tell, I’m in charge for the evening. And you, as my darling capture,” she says, turning to look his bare body up and down hungrily, “are now under my full authority.

“You will not speak unless spoken to, and you will answer me – _politely_ \- when asked a question. I’m going to enact whatever discipline I think suits me.” She picks up the hank, starts unfurling it slowly around her wrist. It slips ands winds its way around her nimble, gloved fingers, shifting against the leather audibly. “That includes restraining you – and teasing you and fucking you with one of my cocks ‘til you’re begging. Fair?” Arum swallows, nods his head once. “Do you think your discipline should hurt? That I could use force - like we talked about before? Answer me honestly.”

She stands in front of him, looking at him expectantly. He clears his throat. “I don’t – I don’t believe I’ve warranted - anything of that nature. For today, at least.”

“I see.” Rilla nods pleasantly. “Any requests?”

“I want to see you,” Arum breathes immediately, almost sweetly, his words gushing out of him on a sigh too desperate and enraptured to control.

“What’s your slow down?”

“Dahlia,” Arum chirps obediently.

“What’s your stop?”

“Duke.”

“Very good,” she purrs. She walks up to him slowly, her eyes perusing and hungry. She plants one hand firmly on his chest, the heat scorching against his bare, waiting skin, and when she gives pressure the firm texture of the leather makes him choke on a gasp. “Now get on your knees.”

He obeys immediately, the thud as he hits the ground muffled by the layer of sheets there to cushion his fall. He’s grateful, both for her attention to detail and her gentle care – even knowing this was intentional, that he’s about to be broken down into a begging and gasping mess on his knees. In all of her plans, as intensive as they might be, she’s accounted for this, an essential aspect under her watchful gaze.

It rakes over him now, her eyes devouring him. The hand on his chest traces up across his torso, over his collarbone and to his shoulder with a gentle graze of fingertips that would be tender if not for belonging to the ruthless steel of her persona. It’s intoxicating, a danger he can’t tear his eyes from – he must look ridiculous, pitiful, his pupils wide and wanting in their submission - turning his head to follow her as she walks a half circle around him.

“Eyes front,” she barks – Arum almost pulls something in his neck, snapping his head forward so quickly. She finishes her diagnostic circle around him, the clipped sound of each footstep and the shift of steel and canvas the only thing breaking the silent tension, before she moves over to her table.

“I know you’re allowed to look, but that doesn’t mean you have the privilege to move around so _freely_ ,” Rilla explains, flint in her voice. “Not as one of the disgraceful little vermin barely fit for kissing my boots.”

“And what would be a more dishonourable place for me to kiss on your person, other than _your_ boots,” Arum retorts, because he can’t help himself, “ _sir_?”

Rilla turns around, and if that didn’t doom him for the rest of the evening, the way he stifles a laugh at the darling little ‘o’ of her mouth at his audacity must. A flash of glee makes itself known in the twitch of her lips before she pulls down her mask of faux indignation again, and the snap of the rope pulled taught between her hands places the scene around them once more.

“I don’t recall _fucking asking_ ,” she replies. She takes one knee in front of him, a hand gripping at his chin possessively. “But because you think you’re so glib, I think I’ll let you refer to me with that title for the rest of the night.” Arum gasps, shivering. Her fingers dig into his cheeks. “Got it?”

“Yes,” Arum rattles, “ _Sir Amaryllis_.”

“Good boy.” She pats his cheek amicably. “I’m also going to tie your cocks up with the rest of you. Maybe that’ll make you behave.”

Arum groans audibly – sees Rilla smirk out of the corner of his eye – as she rises, walks behind him with a swagger in her step and her hand perched on her belt. With a jolt he manages to spy the scabbard hanging at her hip, but it eases immediately once he recognizes the wooden hilt of the knife – merely the one they keep on hand in the bedroom, in case they need cut someone from their bindings quickly – and it all happens too fast to identify whether it was a pure pang of worry, or the kind of adrenaline he feels staring down the wrong end of Damien’s pocket knife –

That is a thought he will need to consider at a later time, pulled from his daydreaming as Rilla yanks one pair of hands behind him, tying them tightly behind his back. The ropes continue to find their way around him, winding like intricate violet ivy as she traces her work over his body with rapt attention. They curve over his shoulders, cinching his upper arms to his trunk. She frogties his bent knees, anchors the length placed teasingly under the base of his tail to the neat rows of knots at his abdomen and lower back. He hisses when she finally – _finally_ – moves between his legs, the graze of leather nothing but a tease but making his pleasure spike dangerously each time. But even as he tries to disobediently buck into her palm, ruts his hips to alleviate his desperation, it only makes the rope tense and rub against his scales. He wants frantically to growl, snarl and thrash against his bindings when she lays the work around the base of his cocks in a figure eight and knots it securely, and each time is granted only the burning friction of rope against him, frustratingly wound in the cage of his own body.

She finishes by tying his second pair of hands in front of him. At first glance, it is an almost sloppy job compared to the agonizing lengths she had devoted to the rest of his bindings; it doesn’t connect to the rest of the work, only wrapped around the wrists, sat on his thighs close enough to touch himself. He knows well enough that this is more than deliberate, and is left with no choice but to clasp them together on his knees with a churlish growl.

“Oh, very good,” Rilla coos as she secures the final knot on her handiwork. “Already following the rules so well, keeping your hands right where they should be all neat and tidy – you already know what I want from you, how I want you to obey.” She lifts a hand up to his face, kisses him with passion and teeth before standing. It leaves him keening, desperately straining to rise up on his knees to follow her. “So greedy, though; we’ll have to see if you can _keep_ this obedient.”

“I can obey, sir,” Arum says softly.

“What did I say,” Rilla chides, “about not speaking.”

“I thought that was a cue,” Arum replies, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Hm.” The bottle of oil is in her hand, her fingers wringing the cork from its neck with a quiet pop. “Well, since I’m being so generous, I think I’ll let that one slide.”

“Thank you, sir,” Arum breathes, reverently, a gasp straight from the gut. Rilla hums sweetly, like honey running off a predator’s fangs, as she kneels down behind him. She’s so small as she presses up to him, her front flush with his back, but he feels absolutely swallowed by her presence as her hands rove and the cool of the armor bites into the warm of his scales. He is – almost distraught at how badly he wants to whine at the palm that runs from his ass inward to the top of his thigh, at the teeth and tongue that map the junction of his shoulder with vicious appetite.

“Look at you,” she whispers, her hot breath, the feather brush of lips on sensitive skin making him shiver. One finger traces the underside of his chin, down the front of his neck with fatal curiosity – a subject under her rule, a specimen for her dissection. “My dear little monster, all tied up in his knight’s trap – I’ve barely even touched you and you’re about to break apart under my touch, barely given you a lick and your pompous ass knows its exact place under my heel.

“Because you can play Lord all you want, stay all high and mighty, fuck us silly at your whim,” – the hand pulls away, and he hears wetness, the sound of slick on someone’s skin – “but at the end of the day, you come crawling back to your little humans - because you know as demanding and self-important you pretend to be, you’re ours for the taking.”

He gasps, lurching forward as slippery cold tucks beneath the nerve-sensitive underside of his tail, between his legs at the opening behind his cocks. Her fingertips – bare, she had taken off one glove, at least – rub along the seam of his cloaca, circling its sinewy edges; he relaxes into the touch, coaxing himself to open up to her ministrations. 

“A-Amaryl-“ he pants, his eyes screwed shut. He can’t help the way his hips rock back and forth, a subtle but agonizing plea he will not indulge in expressing through vocals. “ _Sir_ , please, please-“

“Shh,” Rilla soothes. “Sit up nice and tall, take your dirty fucking with some dignity.” Her other hand braces itself just under his neck, pushing him up and against her; its not hard, not enough to impede breath or circulation, just a grounding, firm pressure that solidifies him in her grasp, safe, secure. “I’m gonna take real good care of you.”

“Thank you, sir,” he breathes. One finger pushes against his slit, sinking into him while she peppers the back of his shoulders with worshipping, biting kisses. She preps him this way – pressing each delicate finger down to the first knuckle, stretching him with scissoring motions and slow, deep thrusts, all while his cocks twitch and ache and his body shakes against her – until he’s open and pliant under her touch. Oil drips off him, down the inside of his thighs and soaking the rope around his lower cock, and he grits his teeth because what he would give now to have her other hand wrapped around him, working him until he comes hard over her fist –

Something cool and hard presses up against his entrance, and if he could shift back half an inch with enough pressure it would fully breach him. But he waits – outright hissing, tail thrashing, teeth clamped to keep from gnashing – his body strung out in the agony of wanting it so badly.

“You ready to take my dick?” Rilla growls in his ear. “You want me to fuck you hard and rough like you deserve, want me to make it so fucking good you wanna cry?” Arum nods fervently. “Use your words.”

“Yes, yes, please Amaryllis, please” – her second hand wraps around him, and with her glove still on, squeezes him around his bindings at the base of his cocks. It’s hard, and it hurts a bit in the best way, making him yelp and shudder pathetically.

“It’s _Sir_ Amaryllis,” she growls. “Don’t start losing your touch, now.”

“Yes, sir,” Arum whines – fully whines, this is what she does to him, making him melt into this pitiable pleading mess, begging for her hands, her lips, her touch, fucking _anything_ –

She sinks the dildo into him with a coaxing nudge, and he keens, arching his back. She laughs softly against his skin, the sound endlessly amused and adoring and so so gorgeous. He is entirely willing as he surrenders to his Amaryllis, this daunting, brave knight, this brilliant headstrong human.

She sets a frantic pace for him, both a stretch and a quick friction that quickly works Arum up to a desperate sensitivity. Each thrust of the toy makes him a little starstruck, a little stunned, his body singing with it. Still, he’s not built like his humans; they both know there’s nothing that can make him come from this – not penetration alone – and it leaves him teetering desperately on his edge sooner than he is proud to admit.

“I know you wanna come,” Rilla hums in his ear, beating him to the punch. Her second hand is right on his thigh, brushing up and down in a slow, smooth rhythm, and if she only moved her hand inward she’d be exactly where he needs her. But she doesn’t, and his legs tremble and his eyes sting. “Oh, I can’t imagine how ready you are – looking at you strain, listening to those cute little purrs under your whines” – a slight shift inward, right on the tender crease where thigh meets torso – “even though you’re trying so damn hard to stay quiet. Although… do you think you’ve earned it yet?”

“Yes, sir,” he gasps immediately, ready to beg at her feet for it if she let him. “Please, I have-“

“Have you?” Rilla croons mischievously. “Has this monstrous lord learned his lesson? Is he going to behave – to use the discipline that his delicate, little knights teach him?”

“Yes,” Arum begs, utterly gone. “Yes, I will, I’m yours, _I’m all yours_ -“

He cries out when she finally wraps a fist around his cocks. Already sore and sensitive from neglect, they twitch almost painfully in her grasp, her palm the perfect friction against him now. She pumps in time with each thrust, her voice goading, encouraging him towards his climax as the knot of pleasure in his lower gut unravels, radiating, yelling and trembling as his toes curl and his claws bite into the skin of his hands –

His release is amazing, and messy, shooting across the floor, and he finds himself almost immediately overstimulated by her touch. He has to lean forward, curling into himself against it – her hand slows of course, but she still strokes him slowly, suspecting a slow descent rather than the way he had already come crashing down to earth.

“Dahlia, dahlia!” he cries, and she immediately stops. He relaxes, slumping where he sits on his knees, and is surprised to find the panting sighs that escape him is tinged with delighted, airy laughter.

“What is it?” she asks. “Are you alright?” Her brow creases as she turns his face towards her as comfortably as she can, her wide, worried eyes making his heart twist.

“I am,” Arum sighs, feels the corners of his mouth twitch in a satisfied smile, “ _fantastic_ , Amaryllis. And fully sated – very sensitive, very much satisfied – if I am right to assume this little scene has–“

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she hums, kissing his mouth, his cheek, nuzzling into his neck as she rocks her body with his. “C’mon, I gotcha.”

He clenches as she gently slides the dildo from him. With a quick, expert pull of the ropes, the ties around his legs come undone, and she can comfortably ease him backwards, laying him down with his head cradled in her thighs. The roaming, inquisitive hands of the knight commanding her capture is replaced by the simple, gentle embrace of her arms around him. He closes his eyes, his thoughts content to drone along with the unconscious purrs rumbling deep in his chest, simply basking as she careful accounts for each rope going slack around his limbs.

“You kept your hands together the whole time,” she hums, grinning her praise at him as she attends to the rope around his second set of wrists. She makes quick work of it, and soon he’s completely free to stretch all his limbs out across the blankets. “Your knees okay?”

“They will be,” he grunts; the two of them wince when he straightens one leg and a gnarly pop sounds from his joints. Rilla turns her focus to them, tucking a pillow underneath his neck before shifting over to massage her fingers into the scales of his legs.

“You don’t have to,” Arum says. He reaches out lazily, brushing a hand up and down her arm.

“I want to,” she replies. His knuckles move to brush against her cheek, flushed red with exertion and exhilaration. “And you deserve it.”

“As much as you should be satisfied in return?”

“It’s okay,” she persists. “That was – intense – amazing, but intense - and I want to give you the chance to recoup, think about what we can do better next time.” He gives her a look that makes her chuckle, and he gives into it when she takes his hand and kisses his knuckles. “I have two perfectly good hands - I can deal with the mess _I_ made for the both of us myself.”

“Well, hopefully not all by yourself.”

She rolls her eyes, swats his leg. “At least let me get out of this armour first.”

“Hop to it, then,” he insists. He even snaps the fingers of one hand at her, and she scoffs.

“You haven’t learning anything, have you?” she protests. He manages to grab her hand as she tries to take another playful swipe at him, pulling her down with a yelp beside him. “Well, I’m staying here now.”

“I’m not complaining,” he replies, and even with her armour still on and her grumpy smile teasing him, there’s not much to lament as she tucks herself under his chin and settles against him like she’s always fit there.


End file.
